


hot knife

by witching



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Asexuality Spectrum, Canon Asexual Character, Canon Typical Magic Voyeurism, Come Eating, Communication, Creeper Elias Bouchard, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, Exhibitionism, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Martin Blackwood's Poetry, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Possessive Sex, Post MAG165, Season/Series 05, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Positive Asexual Character, Sweet/Hot, Trans Jonathan Sims, Trans Male Character, Vaginal Sex, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:01:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23978623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witching/pseuds/witching
Summary: “Jonathan Sims,” Martin whispers hotly, “you could never even begin to fathom how unbelievably sexy that was. Fuck, I want you so bad."Jon furrows his brow in confusion, but he’s smiling, his cheeks flushed dark and radiating heat so close to Martin’s skin. “Really? The – the smiting? That did it for you?”
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 34
Kudos: 664





	hot knife

_he excites me_   
_must be like the genesis of rhythm_   
_i get feisty_   
_whenever i'm with him_   
_if i'm butter, if i'm butter_   
_if i'm butter, then he's a hot knife_   
_he makes my heart a cinemascope screen_   
_showing a dancing bird of paradise_   
_// fiona apple, "hot knife"_

* * *

It’s silent for a while – or not quite silent, but there is no speaking for a time. There is only leaving, which is to say walking, which is sometimes running, but mostly rushing is unnecessary and unhelpful, Jon says. The running is only good for peace of mind; it makes them feel like they’re escaping the horror, rather than simply leaving it behind in favor of a new one. 

Once the music and the screaming has faded completely, Martin bumps Jon’s shoulder gently with his own, pulls them both to a stop. They’re walking through what look like normal streets, buildings crowded close together, shop windows empty and bleak. It could be any number of spooky things, but it could also be the lull between them that Martin has come to relish.

“Are we safe right now?” he asks, glancing around with what might be apprehension, though it’s much overpowered by something else in his expression, something inscrutable even to Jon. “Safe to stop for a mo?”

Jon takes a shallow, shuddering breath, following Martin’s flitting gaze from left to right and across the horizon, stubbornly refusing to look up at the sky. “I think so,” he replies, sounding unsure, then suddenly straightens his back, nods his head once. “Yes, we are.”

“Are you alright?” Martin asks immediately, because he has his priorities, and they have always been this. “I mean, what happened back there – is it more of a, a worms thing, or a coffin thing?”

Nodding, Jon lets his lips twist into a tired little smile, fond and endeared by Martin’s coded language. It’s a simple enough shorthand, and one they’ve come to use frequently as they’ve been travelling through this brave new world.

When Jane Prentiss attacked the Institute, what feels like a lifetime ago, Jon and Martin were together. It was the first time they ever truly bonded, and even with everything that happened after, it still brought them closer, and now it’s something they can discuss freely. They can tell each other how they were feeling at the time, they can talk about the scars and the nightmares that came after, they can even tease and poke fun at each other for how they acted under pressure. That’s a worms thing.

On the other hand, when Jon ventured into the Buried to rescue Daisy, he went alone, without support from anybody – least of all Martin, though he does know now that Martin was responsible for the tape recorders. He underwent that trial thinking there was a good chance he would never come back, and he spent three utterly hopeless days being crushed and choked and pressed and squeezed, and he came out different. He doesn’t like to talk about it – the few times that he’s tried, it’s ended in tears, panic attacks, fits of misdirected anger. It’s a trauma that he bears alone. That’s a coffin thing.

So, _worms or coffin_ means just that: is this too sensitive an issue to talk about? Is it a source of shame or guilt or stress that would be best avoided? Or is it one of many steps in their journey, an anecdote to tell the grandchildren? 

The horrific flashes of insight Jon would get when they were holed up in the cabin were a coffin thing. The false cup of tea that Martin tried to bring him was a worms thing. All the words that come pouring out of Jon into the tape recorder as he steeps in fear and lets it flow through him, those are a lot of Martin's coffin things, the topics he can't bear to hear about. It’s an easy dichotomy to sort their experiences into to prevent unintentionally triggering something awful in each other.

“It’s a worms thing, definitely,” Jon says after some consideration.

Martin huffs out a quick sigh of relief and bites his lip before pressing on. “Okay, and where are you right now on the – the _intimacy_ scale?”

Jon hesitates again, longer this time, to think about how to answer. He takes stock of his body’s state – no sore muscles, only power coursing through his veins – and his mind’s – a bit wrung out, but mostly riding on the high of adrenaline and the energy of the Eye. He squeezes his thighs together experimentally and notes the results with satisfaction.

“Four,” he replies quite confidently. Then, sounding less certain, he adds: “Wait, the scale is out of five, right?”

“Yeah,” says Martin.

“Okay, good,” Jon says with a nod, “then it’s definitely a four. Four point five, maybe.”

At that, Martin grins like a hungry wolf, mutters something that sounds like, “Oh, thank _God,”_ and drags Jon by the hand to the nearest building. His hands planted firmly on either side of Jon’s waist, he pins the smaller man to the wall and leans down to kiss him without preamble. 

It’s a deep and messy thing at first, Martin’s overenthusiasm and Jon’s surprise colliding to create a wet, graceless kiss, but Jon catches up quickly enough. He brings his hands up to fist tightly in the front of Martin’s shirt, pulling him in as he reciprocates the kiss in full. Martin runs his tongue deftly along the line of Jon’s lower lip, and Jon responds by parting his lips invitingly, slipping his own tongue into Martin’s mouth.

Their breaths come in short, sharp pants, mingling in the small space between them as their tongues slide together in an elegant, fervent dance. When Martin pulls away, his eyes are half shut and he has to take a moment to compose himself.

Before he gathers his wits enough to speak, Jon pipes up in a breathless voice, “What’s that for?”

“Jonathan Sims,” Martin whispers hotly, “you could never even begin to fathom how _unbelievably_ sexy that was. Fuck, I want you so bad.”

Jon furrows his brow in confusion, but he’s smiling, his cheeks flushed dark and radiating heat so close to Martin’s skin. “Really? The – the smiting? That did it for you?”

 _“You_ do it for me,” Martin counters without hesitation, dipping lower to kiss along the sharp line of Jon’s jaw, down to his throat. “Never been so turned on in my _life,_ you _incredible_ man.”

"Wow, okay." Jon reels for a moment, bewildered but far from put off. "You're sure you want to – right now? Here?"

"I'm positive," Martin replies, punctuating the statement with a nip to Jon's earlobe. "Not like there's anyone around to see us."

"Well, there's –" Jon begins, his eyes shifting toward the tower in the distance, but Martin cuts him off with a wretched groan.

 _"Please_ don't mention him. I've a feeling there's not a place on earth that we could be truly alone together, so I think it's best to just ignore him." Martin pauses for a second in thought before continuing in a velvet-smooth whisper, brimming with mischief and arousal. "Besides, I don't much mind if he sees you split open on _my_ cock, coming for _me,_ moaning _my_ name. Might put him in his place a bit."

He knows exactly what he's doing, playing Jon's keys so precisely, making him go weak in the knees just so Martin can hold him up. He also knows – they both know – that if Jon didn’t want to do this, Martin would drop the subject without question. Jon absolutely wants to do this, though, and he can hardly claim to be surprised or ashamed at his own exhibitionist tendencies. He bites out a strained noise, shifting so his thigh presses up between Martin's legs, feeling the length of his erection with satisfaction. 

"You drive a hard bargain," he mutters as he pulls Martin back down into a searing kiss. One hand tangled up in Martin's curls, Jon lets the other wander down to undo his pants and slip into his boxers with purpose. He wraps practiced fingers around Martin's shaft, stroking him gently, loosely, swallowing the moans he pulls from the depths of him. 

Somehow through the mess of kissing Jon senseless and bucking against his hand, Martin manages to move his own hands up and under Jon's shirt. He presses one hand into the small of his back as the other explores higher, finding Jon's nipples and teasing them with pinching, rolling movements. As Jon gasps against his lips, Martin cups a small handful, kneading the soft swell of his chest with thick, strong fingers, before moving down to the waistband of his pants and tugging experimentally. 

Jon moves his hands to Martin’s shoulders and arches into the touch, lifting his hips off the wall and allowing Martin to pull them down. Not wanting to waste any time, he pulls away from the kiss, toes his shoes off right there and steps out of his pants, gingerly kicking them out of the way. “I love you,” he sighs, fingertips digging into Martin’s shoulders almost painfully.

“I love you,” Martin replies, a reflex at this point, though of course he fully means it. He moves with purpose to cup Jon’s ass with both hands, squeezing the minimal amount of flesh there, and meets his eyes to check that he’s braced for what comes next.

Snaking his arms around Martin’s neck to establish a strong hold, Jon gives him a minute nod. Still, there’s only a certain extent to which he can prepare, so when Martin lifts him effortlessly off the ground, Jon’s stomach swoops a bit and he takes a sharp inhale before wrapping his legs around Martin’s waist.

“Perfect,” Martin says in a hoarse whisper. “You’re perfect.”

It’s possible that Jon responds with words, but they’re lost in the muffled sounds of his lips against Martin’s throat. After ensuring that Jon is reliably held up by his hold on Martin and his back against the wall, Martin moves slightly awkwardly to dip two fingers between his folds. Jon reacts with a throaty moan as he begins sucking hard at Martin’s pulse point.

Martin groans, tilting his head back to allow Jon better access to suck and bite at the sensitive skin of his throat. Jon has a bit of a thing for leaving marks, and Martin certainly is not about to complain about it. While Jon works him over with his mouth, Martin slides a fingertip around his slick hole, teasing but not pushing in.

“You’re soaked,” he murmurs, bordering on reverence, his cock twitching as he rubs gently over Jon’s dick before moving back to press two fingers inside him, filling him slowly. “God, you’re good, so hot and tight for me, it’s incredible.”

Jon hums a small, contented noise of affirmation, the sound reverberating through Martin’s body from the point of contact with Jon’s lips. “Martin,” he mumbles distractedly, rolling his hips as best he can to try to coax Martin’s fingers deeper inside him.

“Did you want something, love?” asks Martin, aiming for innocent and missing by a mile. He’s usually a very patient man, able to drag on for ages with teasing touches and foreplay while Jon falls apart under his hands, but at the moment, he’s too aroused to play games for very long. But that doesn’t mean he won’t be playing _any_ games.

“Fuck me,” Jon whines desperately. “I want you inside me, I want to feel you, _please,_ Martin.”

“Christ, Jon,” Martin responds, a bit breathless. “You’re so hot. If I didn’t want you so bad, I’d make you wait for hours, just to hear you beg like that.” 

At that, Jon lets out a pitiful whine, and Martin mercifully tires of leading him on. Eyes fixed on Jon’s face, he reaches to pull himself free of his boxers, positioning the blunt head of his cock just at Jon’s entrance and holding him there with an arm wrapped around his waist. He hesitates for just a moment to savor the feeling before using his hold on Jon to lower him slowly, steadily down onto his cock.

Jon’s mouth drops open in a silent gasp of pleasure as Martin’s thick cock fills him, his eyes closed, lips wet, cheeks flushed dark; he looks rapturous, and to look at him makes Martin feel the same. He lets out a quiet, bitten-off grunt as he slides in to the tight wet heat of him with little difficulty, given how slick and ready Jon is. He bottoms out with a small, sharp thrust upwards, and Jon makes a punched-out sound, clenching down on his cock.

“Beautiful,” Martin whispers, half to himself but close enough to Jon’s ear that it approximates an intimate confession. He pulls out shallowly before bucking back in, relishing the soft whimper it pulls from Jon. “Everything about you turns me on, you know that? What you did back there, how you got all – angry, and scary, it – I had to stop myself from ripping your clothes off right then and there.”

“Yeah?” Jon breathes almost inaudibly. Drawing in a deep inhale, he shudders and attempts to use his hold on Martin’s shoulders to raise and lower his hips. It’s mostly ineffective, but Martin gets the idea well enough, and he moves his hands to Jon’s waist to help him move in time with Martin’s thrusts, building up a decent rhythm.

“It was _so_ hot,” Martin whispers, a bit redundantly. “But then, having you like this – fuck, I can’t decide what’s better.”

Jon lifts a hand to wipe a bead of sweat from Martin’s forehead before tangling fingers in his hair and pulling him into a kiss, fierce and filthy. It’s fast, too fast; Martin breaks it after only a few short seconds, though Jon manages to catch Martin’s lower lip between his teeth as he pulls away, a quick nip to communicate his enthusiasm. He’s at Martin’s mercy, gladly so, his hole filled so deliciously as Martin drives into him over and over, Martin’s large hands on his waist, moving him bodily as if he weighs nothing. All Jon can do is revel in it, a stream of broken, whining moans escaping him as Martin keeps talking.

“It’s just – God, you’re so powerful, and you’re _mine,”_ Martin mutters, his voice shaky and tinged with awe. “No matter who can bloody _See_ you, I’m the only one who gets to make you feel like this, gets to make you come. I’m the only one who gets to feel you all tight around my cock and fuck you until you scream."

Frantically nodding his head, Jon hardly manages to babble a response. "Yes, yes, only you," he says, his voice little more than a whine in the back of his throat, shaping the words around his panting breaths. "I'm yours, Martin, always and only yours."

The end of his sentence is almost cut off when Martin surges forward to kiss him, deep and purposeful. His tongue explores Jon’s mouth with precision, feeling out every part of him, tasting him as thoroughly as he physically can – and maybe Martin is imagining it, but he thinks in this new world that maybe he can taste a little more than he ever could before, that maybe through a kiss he can absorb the flavor of Jon’s heart.

It’s an overwhelming notion, one that makes Martin moan openly into Jon’s mouth and tighten his hold, fingertips digging into his waist hard enough that it would have left bruises, in another life. Back when Jon had a body that responded to stimuli the way a human’s would. Now, it’s only sensation and old scars, the ghosts of the time before, frozen in time. No new marks.

Maybe that’s why Jon’s so passionate about leaving them on Martin. He bites down hard on Martin’s lower lip, not enough to break the skin, but enough to draw a broken, muffled whine from him. Jon’s reward is being lifted until only the head of Martin’s cock remains inside him, and then promptly brought back down again, speared open and full so abruptly that it knocks the wind out of him momentarily.

“You want to come for me, love?” Martin asks in a voice like melted chocolate, his lips grazing Jon’s skin as he breaks their kiss to murmur heated words in his ear. “I know you do, you want it so bad. You’re just gagging for it, aren’t you? So ready to fall apart for me and come on my cock.”

Through his gasping moans, Jon manages to eke out a syllable that sounds like “Yuh,” and that’s good enough for Martin. He begins fucking into Jon with renewed vigor, and slips one hand between their torsos to reach Jon’s cock, groaning as his walls clench and tighten around him. 

Jon likes a firm hand, a wealth of sensation, Martin’s strong fingers rubbing over his swollen cock insistently, relentlessly. The first time they did this, a few days after they arrived at the safe house, Jon had to beg Martin to touch him harder, to stop handling him like a porcelain doll; Jon came four times and cried a little bit and thanked Martin profusely. The few times after that, he had to convince Martin that it really wasn’t too much, that he wanted it, that he loved the overwhelming waves of _too much not enough just right_ that Martin wrought from him with his fingers.

Now, Martin knows exactly how to play his body, which strings to pluck and when. He knows just how to stroke the pad of his thumb over Jon’s dick with all the force of pressing a stuck button on a remote control, slowly, unyielding until Jon comes, and sometimes not even then. 

Martin leans in to kiss messily along his jaw just as Jon comes with a low, keening whine, followed by a series of wanton moans as his orgasm washes over him in seismic waves. His walls clench down tightly on Martin’s cock, squeezing him in wringing pulses, and then he goes all but limp against Martin’s chest, forehead resting on the other man’s shoulder while Martin continues fucking him.

“Good, good, perfect,” Martin mutters, half nonsensical in his heated desperation. “I’m so close, _fuck._ Where do you want it?”

Pushing through the aftershocks of his orgasm, Jon presses a kiss to Martin’s shoulder and turns his head to give as coherent an answer as he can. “In me,” he answers hazily. “Want to be full of you.”

Swallowing hard, Martin lets out a choked groan and whispers a soft expletive, then another as Jon continues his fucked out pleas, a mumbled string of words, against Martin’s neck, “Want to be yours, please, fuck, come in me, please.”

Martin couldn’t deny Jon’s request even if he wanted to. He’s fairly certain that hearing those words in Jon’s voice would make him come on the spot in any conceivable context, and hearing it now pushes him over the edge instantly. Martin drives his cock in deep and spills inside Jon, filling him in pulsing waves. A soft whimper escapes Jon at the sensation, and he tries feebly to roll his hips, to grind down on Martin’s cock and wring him out.

When Martin is spent, he slumps toward the wall, eyes closed and panting, Jon bracketed between his arms. Jon wraps around him securely, clinging tight so that Martin doesn’t even have to hold him up anymore, and presses several soft kisses to his cheeks and forehead while he catches his breath.

“You're so good,” Martin says eventually. "Such a lovely little thing, just for me. I’m going to pull out now, alright?” Jon nods his head minutely, the movement brushing his cheek against Martin’s hair, and Martin makes sure that he’s holding on before gingerly slipping out of his hole. He doesn’t stop holding on, so Martin wraps his arms around Jon’s shoulders and embraces him tightly. 

After another long, quiet, frozen moment, Martin pulls back to look at Jon’s face, a smile playing on his lips. “Do you want my mouth?”

Jon only barely restrains himself from whimpering pathetically. “Yeah,” he says, soft and a bit hoarse, “yes, please.”

“Thought so,” Martin quips. He extricates himself from the vice of Jon’s limbs, setting him gently on his feet and holding him for an extra second to be sure he’s steady, and sinks to his knees gracefully. “I love you so much,” he whispers reverently, hot breath ghosting across Jon’s slick skin, tickling the thick, dark hair on his thighs and stomach and between his legs. “I love this, love showing you how much you belong to me. Love that you let me have you like this, lick you clean, fuck you open with my tongue and just take you to _pieces.”_

An aching whine escapes Jon and Martin smiles wide and bright, like he’s been given a gift. He pushes Jon lightly, bringing his back flush with the wall, before wrapping his hands around Jon’s calves, looking up at his face again to check that he’s ready, and lifting in one swift motion to hook both of Jon’s knees over his shoulders. It’s a bit of a precarious position, but with Jon’s back braced against the wall and Martin promptly establishing a hold on his thighs to support him, they make it work. 

Martin doesn’t waste any time, burying his face between Jon's legs with enthusiasm. Jon’s hands fly to his head immediately, fingers twisting in his dark curls and pulling just the smallest amount, just the way Martin likes it. He hums pleasantly as he licks from Jon’s cock down to his hole, fucked out and dripping with slick and come, and laps at the mess like a man starved. 

Which – true, they haven’t done much of this since the whole apocalypse thing, and even less since they embarked on their quest, but it’s not like Martin’s been dying without it. It’s not like he’s been desperate for it. Truth be told, he hasn’t even really thought about it much, which might go some way toward explaining why he’s so affected now, why he was so sensitive to Jon’s, for lack of a better word, smiting. 

It is a _surprisingly_ accurate term, actually, not only because Jon called upon the Eye to smite his foe, but also because Martin certainly feels smitten by the whole event. The thought brings a smile to his face, lips moving against Jon’s folds to curve up at the corners, and he makes a mental note to tell Jon about it later. Jon loves wordplay.

Then it occurs to Martin that it’s rather an inappropriate time to be thinking about wordplay, that he has much more important things to worry about at the moment, so he focuses and rededicates his efforts to the task at hand. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy this – he loves it, unequivocally and unabashedly – but when he eats Jon out after fucking him, it’s a more utilitarian function. 

It does make things easier to not have come leaking from him as they continue their travels, not to mention that Jon is a needy little thing sometimes, and he can get in a strange mood if Martin doesn’t thoroughly take him apart. So Martin endeavors to clean Jon up and make him come, an easy enough goal.

The mingled taste of Jon’s juices and Martin’s come is incentive enough, really. Martin teases around the edges of Jon’s hole for just a moment before plunging his tongue in, licking him clean from the inside, making wanton little moans and shameless wet noises as he loses himself in it. He takes some time to properly fuck Jon on his tongue, working him open and winding him up, pressing up against a sensitive spot and reveling in the alien sensation of Jon’s walls tensing around his tongue. It only takes a few more swipes over that spot before Jon comes, speared open on Martin’s tongue, with a gush of slick that makes Martin moan and suck hungrily at his hole.

Martin doesn’t let up. Jon clenches desperately around the emptiness left behind as Martin pulls his tongue out and moves up to his cock. He’s whimpering something awful, tugging painfully at Martin’s hair, and he _screams_ when Martin wraps his lips around his dick and sucks on it.

“God, that’s good, don’t stop,” Jon slurs, trying his best to push back against Martin’s mouth, grinding down on his face as best he can. 

He doesn’t have the leverage to do much of anything, but Martin is putting enough effort into it that Jon doesn’t really need to actively participate. He only needs to give in to the overwhelming sensation as Martin presses the flat of his tongue against his cock and drags upward, the texture and the pressure igniting his nerves.

When Jon comes for the third time, it takes them both by surprise, suddenly crashing over him, and Martin licks him through it like he was born for it. Jon's thighs tighten around his head beautifully for a long, suspended moment and then go slack again. Martin eases up a bit, but he continues gently suckling on Jon’s cock until he makes a high, strangled sound, another orgasm hitting him right on the tails of the last one. Jon shakes like hell before going taut as a bowstring, arching his back and tugging hard at Martin’s hair to pull him away from the oversensitive nerves.

Martin rests, takes a few deep breaths, then moves with care to set Jon’s feet back on the ground, holding him steady before standing to join him. Jon, ever the pragmatist, immediately turns to grab his pants, so Martin follows his lead and zips himself up. He knows better than to read into Jon’s idiosyncracies like this – he is thoroughly wrecked, even if he appears to be only a tad disheveled.

When they’re both clothed, Jon takes a step closer to Martin, so their chests are almost touching, and looks at him. For a moment, it seems as if he only wants to look, but then he leans in and kisses Martin.

“You have quite the way with words,” Jon mumbles, lips moving against Martin’s, “and I’m not just talking about your poetry.”

Martin smiles and gives an almost imperceptible nod of his head before pulling up short. “What do you mean?” 

Jon gives him another peck on the lips before answering, “Your dirty talk should be winning literary awards.”

“No, I mean,” – Martin sighs, brushes his hair out of his eyes, – “you’ve read my poetry?”

"Oh." Jon's face heats up immediately, so intense Martin can feel it radiating from his skin. "Yes. A bit of it, yeah. A… a while back."

"Why? When? How?" Martin sputters, verging on something like betrayal or anxiety, but primarily just utterly confused.

Jon bites his lip, shifting his weight between his feet. "Er, you remember back when I was – you know, after the Prentiss attack?" He stalwartly avoids looking up at Martin's face, but pauses for a moment to give him time to understand the non-question, then continues in a soft, shameful murmur. "I went through your things. A bit. Found some notebooks and… you know. Read some of them."

"Oh," Martin whispers, too low for Jon to parse any kind of emotional reaction from the single syllable.

"I'm sorry," he blurts out, suddenly feeling deeply guilty about the whole thing. "I shouldn't have, of course, it was awful of me, a gross invasion of your privacy and betrayal of your trust, and –,"

"But you _liked_ it?"

Pulling back slightly to look at Martin's face, Jon blinks up at him several times, thrown by the interruption. Martin doesn't look or sound upset – a bit confused, but mostly full of wonder, and Jon can't begin to comprehend the reaction. It takes him a minute to remember that Martin asked him a question.

"I did, yes," he answers without a hint of uncertainty. "I couldn't admit it to myself at the time, but – yes."

"I thought… you said you didn't like poetry," says Martin, his brow furrowed deeply, as if trying to do a complex calculation in his mind. "I mean you said that to me, like, less than an hour ago."

Jon nods his head once, slowly, solemnly. "I _didn't_ like poetry," he admits, "but then I read yours, and – well. It was… evocative."

Martin looks wholly unconvinced, frowns and mutters a disbelieving, "Was it?"

 _"The streets are hard in London, paved in old secrets, the hot smell after the rains,"_ Jon recites in lieu of an answer, speaking in a voice like a melody, like a prayer. _"The threads of people walking, living, loving: walking the paths of lives unseen; living in a world of unknown roads; loving amidst the shadows of choices, stretching like silk into the future. Paths of good intention leading somewhere, anywhere, to shake off the dirt underfoot and stand in the streets looking up, taking notice, being seen."_

"Wow," Martin breathes. "Did you – I mean, was that – did you _Know_ that?"

Smiling, Jon shakes his head. "No, Martin, I remembered it," he answers. "I read it so many times that it burned itself into my memory."

"But… but – _why?"_

"Because I love you," Jon says simply. "Of course, I didn't know it then, just like I didn't know I could enjoy poetry. I have been wrong a few times."

A smile begins to show on Martin's face, growing brighter by the second. "Can I get that last bit in writing?" he teases, poking Jon gently in the ribs. "Actually, can I get all of that in writing? The part about you loving me, and the part about my poetry changing your whole outlook on art and language, and the part about you being wrong?"

"I don't think I said it _changed my whole outlook on art and language,"_ Jon objects half-heartedly, beaming up at Martin. "Plus, I don't have any paper. I can commit it to tape, if you'd like."

Martin tries to protest that it won't be necessary, that he was only joking, but Jon's already pulled out his tape recorder. He makes a big show of pressing the record button before speaking into it, clearly and slowly. 

"I, Jonathan Amos Sims, the Archivist, hereby testify the following: firstly, that it was solely the poetic prowess of Martin K. Blackwood which changed my mind on the value of poetry,” he pauses meaningfully, raising a single eyebrow as if to challenge Martin to disagree with him, to bring out his practiced modesty that tends toward self-deprecation, but he doesn’t, so Jon continues: “Secondly, that I have been misinformed, ignorant, and willfully obtuse about a great number of things in my life; and thirdly, that I am truly, madly, deeply in love with the aforementioned Mr. Blackwood."

"Oh," Martin pipes up excitedly, "and tell the tape how hard I made you come."

Jon rolls his eyes, but the gesture is all fondness. "Addendum," he says into the recorder. "Mr. Blackwood would like it on the record that he did, in fact, fuck me so well that I believe it qualifies as a religious experience. He is a magnificent, wildly talented lover and made me come so hard I saw stars. Four times."

He clicks the tape recorder off and returns it to his pocket before grinning up at Martin. It's a blinding smile, an intoxicating smile, all adoring and satisfied, and Martin can't resist leaning in to kiss it off his face, hands coming up to cradle Jon’s cheeks as he kisses him slow and sweet, like honey. When he pulls away, he looks up at the sky – something he's been mostly avoiding doing since all of this went down.

"You hear that?" he taunts, his voice at a conversational volume, knowing he can still be heard. "He's _mine._ Get fucked."

"All yours, Martin, only yours," Jon agrees in a soft, approving murmur, holding out his hand and tilting his head toward the horizon. "Come on, we should get moving. See if I can't smite anyone else for you."

Martin nods and takes Jon’s hand in his own, squeezing it gently as they begin walking again, continuing on their journey. "Don't go overboard on the smiting, though,” he warns lightly. “I can only take so much.”


End file.
